Check in pics.
Jan 4 > May 28
BW 72 (159lbs) > 69kg (152lbs) (4% BW down)
Lifts are up!
Some highlights, after running 351 exclusives, with Coffinworm in the middle of this period.
Angered the elbow and worked through that also during, on the mend nicely.
Squat:
102.5 x 1 > 102.5 x 5
OHP:
55 x 2 > 55 x 4
hit 60 x 1 finally too (1 plate)
Hex DL:
135 x 1 > 135 x 2
125 x 3 > 125 x 5
90 x 8 > 90 x 15
Bench:
67.5 x 10 > 72.5 x 10
85 x 3 highlight in there too
Spent most of the year working around a shoulder injury, focusing on arms, upper back, and conditioning in support of jiu-jitsu. Happy to be a few pounds lighter than when I started (152-ish compared to 149-ish). Slicing off another 4-5 lbs by the August Check-in would be ideal.
Congratulations to everyone on another great challenge!
I couldn’t find my “before” pictures, but here are the “afters.” I probably don’t look a ton different, but anybody following asking knows I spent half the winter continuing to gain, and have been cutting weight since March 1. I am not unhappy with where I’ve ended up, and have definitely added some good weight in good places.
I had no particular goals coming in—I’ve just been lifting some weights and doing some conditioning, pretty much like always.
But the biggest win?
On Saturday morning, I had occasion to put on my suit for the first time in who knows how long, and it was tight in all the right places and loose in all the others! (I confess I was a bit too proud of that fact, but we’ll just keep that between us…)
Seriously, though, I couldn’t button the top button of the dress shirt, and my collar’s been the same size since my senior year of high school. And not by just a little, either—it felt a bit like this:
Thanks man! Glad to have you as a source of inspiration. Deep Water definitely necessitated some change, terrible terrible change but it was absolutely transformative
Ok, everyone, I started drafting out the voting thread so I could understand how hard it would be. I’ll definitely get it done by tonight (after work) and will let it run the rest of the week.
So: this is your final call to get your after pictures in!
You all did incredibly hard work and I don’t want anyone to miss the chance to show it off.
Update to my above after post regarding blood work:
A1c dropped from 7.6 to 6.3 (significant improvement and considered “controlled” now)
Everything else except ALT was normal. ALT elevated at 62 (waiting to hear from my doc on that one). Mine is always on the top end of normal or slightly above but I think (IIRC) this is higher than its been in awhile.
A1c improvement for me was the biggest win over the physique improvements. Since I am diabetic having that under control will be one of the determining factors in my quality of life/longevity as I get older.
